Crystal Vision has introduced Safire HD 2, an updated HD chroma keyer that offers new features at a reduced price.

Designed for use by broadcasters and sports graphics providers, the Safire HD 2 offers selectable color suppression, a new feature that allows more tolerance to difficult colors in the foreground such as someone wearing blue clothes in front of a blue screen.

This tolerance is achieved by offering two sets of hue and acceptance angle controls, which generate the key signal. The device decides whether a pixel in the output is foreground or background and produces the suppressed foreground by removing the key color from the foreground. Safire HD 2 extracts the information for these two uses separately, allowing the operator to set different values for each function.

The new model also increases chroma key gain to help Safire HD 2 deal with poor key signals caused by low light conditions, and the card includes improvements to the shadow processing.

For sports, Safire HD 2 allows inserting graphics on to sporting surfaces during live events thanks to its three special features: Force Foreground, Force FB and Luminance keying. A major use of the luminance key is to add graphics to winter sports, and one of Safire HD 2’s new features makes the setting up of this easier by allowing the operator to view the luminance key on a monitor so he can continually tweak the settings as the light changes.